TERRITORIAL STORIES: THE PRIVATIZATION OF KAIOWA LANDS AS A STRATEGY TO GUARD THE BRAZILIAN BORDER AND OTHER STORIES

Abstract

Among the Kaiowa, the downfall of political, ritualistic and economic practices, which generates misery and violence, is associated to territorial losses. That’s the foundation to a research grounded on the analysis of personal and familiar stories, where the retrospect of kinship relations, politic composition, ritual exchanges, displacements and relationship with non indigenous led to a consistent territorial history. Within those, fragile chronologies contrast with a vast ethnography and cartography. This one is based on water courses, brings keys that surpasses the kaiowa invisibility, which is still cultivated by the historians and memorialists. In this context, the detailing of the kaiowa presence in the Brazil-Paraguay border demonstrates the role that the Brazilian Empire/State plays as a generator of contemporary land conflicts, given that colonization projects and provided property titles – despite indigenous presence and legislation – support the establishment of political and territorial oligarchies, source of kaiowa land losses. However, the indigenous and non indigenous narratives’ interlacement does not propose a classic ethno-history, because if the narratives are complementary in regard to contents, they differ in format and approaches.